Plot and Punishment
by Grevola
Summary: GW/HP Xover. Draco asks Quatre and Trowa for help when he wants to get Harry into trouble. Genfic. Complete.
1. The Plot

**Title: **Plots and Punishments. Part 1: The Plot.**  
Author: **Grevola  
**Rating/Word Count:** PG, 1114 words  
**Notes:** Don't own GW or HP. Part of the Sorting Hat Arc.

-_-_-_-_-

Trowa watched as Draco Malfoy stepped into the common room and looked around. This week, he and Quatre were in a friendly truce that would last right up until Draco said something stupid about Mudbloods, at which point Trowa would give him a look, Duo would nut him, and Quatre would send him packing. Today though, it seemed that Draco was willing to trust in the truce holding at least a bit longer.

He ambled over to where Trowa and Quatre were playing wizard's chess. "Winner, Barton," he said, "a word?"

Trowa raised an eyebrow and Quatre shrugged, then they both followed the young Malfoy into the first year dormitory. At this time of day it was guaranteed to be empty.

"Where's Maxwell?" he asked.

"He's got detention with Snape," Quatre said.

"Just as well," Draco said, "I've got news, and it won't do me any good if it's spread all over the school."

"What is it?"

"That big oaf, Hagrid," Draco smirked, "has got a dragon."

"Here?" Trowa asked, interested despite himself.

The thin-faced blond nodded, "A baby one at any rate. In that wooden hut of his, of all places."

"Idiot," Quatre muttered. But Trowa wasn't paying much attention, he was thinking of when he could sneak down to the Gamekeeper's cottage to see for himself.

"That's not the best of it. Potter and his friends are going to help smuggle it out Saturday night. From the astronomy tower."

Quatre's blue eyes narrowed, "You're unusually well informed, Malfoy."

"It's not like they're much good at hiding things," he hedged.

"Where'd you get your information, Malfoy? I'm not sticking my neck out on your say so."

There was a brief staring contest between the two blonds. At first appearance the two boys might have seemed like bookends. Both with pale hair, and blue-grey eyes, looking washed out in their dark robes. But where Draco's face was sharp, Quatre's was rounder. And if Draco seemed to remind people of a weasel, Quatre had a standing threat that he would curse the next person calling him a "cherub" with hives. And on the rare occasions where Quatre could be bothered enough for a contest of wills, he always won. That afternoon was no exception.

"I found this letter in a book I nabbed from Weasley," Draco said at last, handing over a slightly dogeared piece of parchment. "His brother's doing dragon research in Romania."

Quatre read the letter quickly and handed it to Trowa. The taller boy skimmed it enough to see it backed up what Draco had told them, and then returned the note to the scowling boy. "Looks right," he offered.

Quatre nodded, "I take it you want to mess up Potter?"

"Who doesn't?" Malfoy shrugged. And he had a point. It was well known in Slytherin house, if not in the rest of the school, that Quatre Winner detested Harry Potter on principal. He was completely against anyone being hailed as a wonderful hero just because they hadn't managed to die as a baby. Seeing Harry receive special treatment right and left made his presence even more offensive. Trowa, on the other hand, wasn't particularly impressed with Harry one way or another. However, if he kept letting himself get caught, then Trowa figured the most famous wizard in the school deserved every lost point and detention he got.

"Easy enough, leave the letter under Filch's door, and he'll take care of Potter."

Draco rolled his eyes, "I tried that with the wizarding duel. You remember how well that turned out?"

"I didn't hear anything about that," Quatre frowned.

"_Exactly_," Draco said, "nothing came of it because Potter chickened and didn't get caught."

"So you have some other plan then?"  
The thin boy smirked and leaned against one of the bed posts, "Of course I do. Someone, maybe you Barton, you're good at skulking around, waits at the top of the astronomy tower for them. Potter and his cronies show up, and our lurker sets off a bunch of sparks with their wand."

Quatre, seeing where the plan was going, took over, "Then they hide while the teachers catch Potter up the tower, and with an illegal dragon, and our spark-shooter sneaks down to the dormitory when all the fuss is over. Not a bad plan," he nodded, "but you'll need two people."

"Why? The tower's a bit big, but there's only the one staircase."

"Who says they're going to haul the dragon up the stairs?" Quatre asked. "If it were me, I'd get the Granger girl to rig some sort of harness for a crate and then I'd have Potter fly it up on that fancy broom of his."

Draco moaned, "So they could come up on any side of the bloody tower!"

Quatre nodded, but Trowa frowned, thinking, "Most likely they'd use the northeast or the west face," he said. "They're the least visible from inside the castle."

"If some one were watching the staircase they could keep an eye on the west face at the same time," Quatre said.

"Excellent!" Draco nearly crowed. "So you and Barton will go up to the tower around 11:30, and I'll-"

Quatre frowned, "Who said _I_ was going anywhere? Draco, you and Trowa will go." He held up a hand when Draco started to protest, "I will be keeping Duo out of the way."

That put an end to the other blond's protests immediately. Duo was a loose cannon in the Slytherin house. He held nothing as sacred, put his nose where it wasn't wanted, and he was most annoyingly slytherin about doing absolutely anything in pursuit of his goals. Just as the Bloody Baron was the only one who could put the breaks on Peeves, Quatre and Trowa seemed to be the only people in the school who could manage Duo. Quatre because he could generally redirect Duo's attention, and Trowa because something about him seemed to scare the crap out of the long haired menace.

Draco couldn't do much with Duo besides piss him off in record time, though to be fair the feeling was generally mutual. And hoping Duo wouldn't find out about the plan was like hoping McGonagall would assign them flower arranging as homework.

"Alright," he said after a long pause, "agreed. I'll go up the tower with Barton, you'll manage Maxwell and make sure we aren't missed."

Trowa nodded, "Agreed."

The other blond just brushed a curl from his fore head and smiled, "Then we're all agreed."


	2. The Punishment

**Title: **Plots and Punishments. Part 2: The Punishment.**  
Author: **Grevola  
**Rating/Word Count:** PG, 1350  
**Notes:** Don't own GW or HP. Part of the Sorting Hat Arc, x-posted to my LJ.

-_-_-_-_-

"What _I_ want to know," Draco said as he slunk up the stairs to the great hall, "is who sold us out. And to _McGonagall_ of all people."

"Crabbe," Trowa said, wandering along with his hands in his pockets.

"_Vincent_ Crabbe?!"

He nodded, "Heard him telling Goyle he was sick of you leaving him out of things."

"That double-crossing, back-stabbing, ugly little _toad_," he sneered.

Trowa shrugged. _He_ wouldn't have gotten caught sneaking around the astronomy tower, except Draco had told McGonagall he was up there as well. Fortunately they arrived at the main entrance about then, and the presence of Filch shut Draco up before he could put his foot further in his mouth.

The Gryffindors weren't long behind, and Filch led them all down the grounds toward Hagrid's hut, spinning yarns about their immanent demise the whole way. Trowa tried to look as frightened as Draco, or at least as worried as Harry, when he heard they were going into the Forbidden Forest. He had a hunch that if he looked like all his deepest wishes had just been granted, then Filch would pull him away and make him clean cauldrons for Snape or something equally boring.

Once they had been passed into Hagrid's care they were split into two groups. "Harry, Hermione an', ha! We'll make a day of it. Hiiro, yer with me. Trowa, you an' Neville an' Draco go with Fang." Then they split up and started following the shimmering splotches of unicorn's blood.

Draco was obviously nervous because he started picking on Neville right away. "So Longbottom, how'd you earn a detention? Manage to blow up the charms room did you?"

"N-no Malfoy," the round-faced boy said.

"What did you do then? Accidentally catch McGonagall's hair on fire? Jumble up the stars in Astronomy?"

"I- I got caught t-trying to warn Harry about you!" Neville said all in a rush.

"Huh. And I suspect that creepy foreign kid was in on it with you? He's always following Potter around like a dog."

"What? No," now Neville sounded more confused than scared, but Trowa didn't think it was much of an improvement. "Hiiro didn't know Harry was going to be up there. He wanted to look at the stars for some reason, he even had some kind of chart thing with him."

"A chart?" Trowa asked, suddenly interested.

"Yeah, it didn't look like home work, it had all pentagrams and funny symbols on."

"Did he say why he wanted to look at the stars?" Trowa pressed.

Neville shrugged, "He said something about something being brilliant and wanting to see, but McGona-GAH!"

In a faster move than Trowa would have thought the shorter boy could manage, Neville had his wand out and shooting red sparks almost before he had turned to see what grabbed him. What _had_ grabbed him of course was that most rare and dangerous denizen of the forest: Draco Malfoy. Who was almost doubled over in laughter at his own prank.

"Draco," Trowa scowled, but it must have been too dark to show, or else Draco was too scared of the forest to worry about being scared of Trowa, because the blond didn't even seem to notice.

"Did you see how high he _jumped_?! Like his toad! Aw, stop yelling Longbottom, it was all just a bit of fun."

But about then Hagrid arrived and he didn't seem to think it was funny at all. He marched them all back to where the other Gryffindors were waiting. "All right, we're changin' groups," he said. "Harry, you go with the Slytherins and Fang, an' see if ya can't keep 'em out of trouble."

"Sir, I would like to go with Harry," Hiiro said, "I could switch with Malfoy or Barton."

"Yeah, well _we're_ not giving up Fang!" Draco answered. Trowa tacitly backed him up by continuing to scratch the boarhound behind the ears.

Hagrid surveyed the group for a moment before he shook his huge head, "Sorry Hiiro, yer with me an' Neville an' Hermione. Besides, I'll need ya to talk astronomy at the centaurs again if we run inta any more." And that was the end of that.

Once they had set off again along the blood trail, Draco poked Harry with his wand, "Hey, what was that oaf talking about now? He can't be serious about the centaurs."

Harry shrugged, "Shows what you know Malfoy, we ran into a couple earlier. They kept saying 'Mars is bright tonight'" he made his voice sound hoarse and mystic, "it was really annoying Hagrid, I can tell you. But then Hiiro comes out of nowhere and says 'But Venus lingers with the moon in the house of Heart'." He did a passable imitation of Hiiro's odd accent and rolled his eyes.

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?" Draco asked, "Barton?"

"Don't look at me," Trowa shrugged, "If it weren't for Quatre I'd be failing astronomy."

"Probably doesn't mean anything," Harry growled, "I think Hiiro only wound up in Gryffindor because there isn't a house for really weird- What's that?!"

Every one stopped at Harry's words, and Trowa peered over his shoulder into a clearing, where there was a white mess that was all that remained of the unicorn. The creature had a huge gash in his side, and his limbs hung at odd angles. The clearing was splattered with the luminescent silver blood. The sight was violent, and bloody, but as there didn't seem to be anything alive in the clearing, Trowa turned his attention to his companions.

He watched with surprise as both Draco and Harry's expressions turned form shock to sadness. Tears were making their way down Draco's cheeks, unnoticed, and Harry looked heartbroken. Trowa wondered why the sight of the dead animal didn't seem to bother him as much. Perhaps they had never seen one before. He looked back at the remains of the unicorn, and tried to figure out what would affect the others so deeply. But the more he looked at it, the less he thought of the other two boys, and the more he was reminded of the way the men, his companions, had looked with their bodies laying limp and broken, and the smell of gunpowder and rain in the Balkans...

Potter took a step forward, distracting Trowa from his memories, but at the same time a cloaked figure broke from the undergrowth across the clearing. The three boys froze, now transfixed by horror as the figure approached the dead animal and began to drink the silvery blood. This proved to be too much for Draco, and he screamed and rushed back down the path with Fang at his heels.

"Idiot!" Trowa hissed as he sent up red sparks with his wand and tried to pull Harry away from the clearing.

But Harry had nearly collapsed on the spot, grabbing his head, and completely oblivious to Trowa's efforts. To make matters worse, the cloaked figure had abandoned its feasting and was now heading toward them across the clearing. In that moment Trowa knew in his bones that he had no business picking a fight with with whoever, or whatever was under the cloak. He gave Harry's arm one last ineffectual tug, and the he turned and loped off after Draco.

He felt like he had been running though the dark forest forever when he finally came across Draco and Fang, now with Hagrid and headed along the path towards him. He hadn't even caught his breath to tell them what had happened when a centaur burst onto the path just between him and the others. Harry was riding on it's back and looking paler than Trowa had ever seen him before. The centaur deposited Harry with the group, and left after a few cryptic words, Hiiro's glare following his horse tale into the underbrush. Trowa didn't pay much attention to the exchange, he was mostly glad to be clear of the cloaked creature and headed back to the castle.

-_-_-_-

The next afternoon, as Trowa was trying to get warm by the common room fire, Draco flopped into a high-backed chair next to him. "Barton," he said.

"Malfoy."

There was a long pause while they stared at the fire, organizing their thoughts. "Barton, you abandoned Potter back there," Draco said at last.

He shrugged, "There wasn't any strategic reason to stay. Odds were better if I found you. Then at least we would both get out."

"You didn't feel the need to jump between him and that... thing in the cloak?"

Trowa gave him a long look from behind his thick bangs. "No," he said at last. Then he stood up, "If you're looking for noble acts of stupidity, you should look for a Gryffindor, Draco. You're only going to find Slytherins around here."

Then Trowa put his hands in his pockets and wandered off to find Quatre. They had a chess game to finish.


End file.
